The Classic Mama Cass Album ‘Dream A Little Dream’ Returns to Vinyl
The classic LP by the Mamas and the Papas singer marked Cass Elliot’s emergence as a solo star.
Dream A Little Dream, the classic album by Mamas and the Papas singer Cass Elliot, is returning to vinyl. The standard black version of the album expands the original tracklist with two covers recorded during the same sessions, of John Sebastian’s “Darling Be Home Soon” and Joni Mitchell’s “Sisotowbell Lane.”
Dream A Little Dream arrived in 1968 in the wake of Cass Elliot’s split from the Mamas and the Papas. Less than a month after the group disbanded, Elliot signed a three album solo deal with Dunhill Records. She chose to work with producer John Simon on shaping the LP, after enjoying his prior work with the Band. It was recorded over the course of ten days in Los Angeles, and saw the singer experiment with country, blues, jazz, gospel, and other sonic textures beyond her previous scope. She tracked almost every song live. “I have a lot of things inside me to sing and I can’t expect the others to wait around until I have got things out of my system,” she shared in an interview shortly after the split. “It’s not that I wanted to leave the group, it’s just that I wanted to do some things on my own.”
The best-known song on the album is its title track, “Dream A Little Dream Of Me,” a cover of the 1930 standard also tackled by Anita Harris, Ella Fitzgerald, Chicago, and Anne Murray, among others. To this day, Elliot’s first version with the Mamas and the Papas remains the highest-charting one. The version on Dream A Little Dream is slightly altered and longer, but her vocal prowess and soul resonates as clearly as ever.
Elliot went on to release five solo albums during her lifetime, and also had an onscreen career, making appearances on TV programs including The New Scooby-Doo Movies; Young Dr. Kildare; Love, American Style; and The Red Skelton Show throughout the 1970s. She died in her sleep at the age of 32 due to a heart attack, and in 1998, was posthumously inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. In her honor, her hometown Baltimore named August 15, 1973, “Cass Elliot Day.”
